


When Autumn Breaks

by LunaInvidia



Category: Changeling: The Lost, World of Darkness (Games)
Genre: Branding, Clarity Loss, Death, Gen, Implied Torture, Mind Break, Not a Happy Story, Psychological Torture, True Fae, keepers, loss of voice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-28 20:39:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15057386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaInvidia/pseuds/LunaInvidia
Summary: When the Autumn Queen of a troubled freehold loses the love she holds most dear, the rest of her freehold- and the friends she once had- will learn what makes a Keeper.  One person- the spring siren Ophelia- will find out that if the False Queen of Grace can't have her happy ending- no one will.Something I wrote when my friend's PC was dipping into dangerously low clarity, and we wanted to explore what would happen if she became a True Fae.





	When Autumn Breaks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wixed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wixed/gifts).



_The ceremony had been lovely, everyone agreed. A marriage between Seelie and Unseelie, light and dark- a new start for a broken freehold. For once there was no political infighting, no fear._

 

_The Wyrd has a truly unfortunate sense of irony._

 

_As Aldrich spun his bride around the floor to the strains of soft violin, the sound of a hunting horn shattered the peace. Before the startled guests could react, an entire army of the Court of the Huntsman had descended on them, bursting through windows and laying waste to the unprepared Lost._

 

_The Freehold sprang to the defense but they were hopelessly outnumbered and dressed in party clothes, not armor. Retreat seemed the only option, but where was the bride and groom?_

 

_In the middle of the dance floor, Aldrich breathed his last, struck through the heart and throat with bolts of cold iron. It seemed they had intended to take out the Spring Monarch, and had missed the transfer of power._

 

_Over his body, Leia keened and raged. The Loyalists made to strike her down-_

  


“No one can find them” Natalie murmured, her voice still raw with shock and horror. “We weren't followed. We found half a hundred Loyalist corpses, all with their faces twisted with fear, but no Leia, and no Aldrich.” She started to say something else, and Ophelia stopped her.

 

“You didn't leave them behind,” she said soothingly. “You saved us. Henry owes you his life, and not just him.” The Wizened chef was still recovering from near-fatal stab wounds. Natalie had stopped the bleeding and gone back for others. “Aidan, Feather, even Li- you saved all of them.” Natalie shook her head despairingly, staring at her hands. Ophelia sighed softly.

 

“We’ll keep looking.”

  
  
  
  


Months passed with no word. The Loyalists did not attack again, despite the weakness as the freehold struggled to put itself back together.  In fact Denver seemed... much quieter than before. Ophelia watched the mountains and wondered where Leia and Aldrich had gone.

 

She didn't have to wonder forever.

  
  


It was just past the autumnal equinox. Almost a year had passed since Aldrich and Leia’s ill-fated wedding. Ophelia- with the help of Natalie, Llorona and the new-crowned Autumn King- had reclaimed her home and family.  She didn't even mind the chill of the changing seasons, nestled in between her lovers. It was easy to forget what had happened when she was so in love.

 

A nightmare she couldn't quite remember woke Ophelia from her sleep (in her own bed for once). The house was silent but... _wrong_ , the air was wrong, something was smothering her-

 

Smoke. Like a candle that had been snuffed out. Like the island-

 

_No._

 

_Sebastian! Ethan!_

 

Ophelia ran. Down the halls, down the stairs to the master bedroom-

 

There was an impossibly tall figure silhouetted in the doorway. It turned- oh, it was fair of face and form, clad in a long black gown that swirled _like smoke_ , it- _oh_

 

 _“_ Leia?” Ophelia gasped, hope and horror both freezing the blood in her veins. She didn’t smell the smoke any more. It had been a nightmare. She was imagining it- this was just Leia, just her _friend-_

 

Leia smiled.

 

She was just as pretty as ever, but her features were no longer remotely human. Her eyes were still a glowing amber (set in black), her lips still freshly red- but oh, her skin too white, too smooth and porcelain, her hair like a living thing, rich and long.  Too beautiful to be close to human.

 

 _“Ophelia,”_ she spoke. “I’m sorry to wake you.” Just like that, as if this was normal.

 

“What... what are you doing here?” Ophelia stammered. “Where did you go- Natalie- we all- have been looking-” Leia laughed just a little bit and cold, cold fear settled its hands around Ophelia's throat. “...Why are you here?”

  


In answer, Leia- the thing, the Keeper that had _been_ Leia- merely stepped to the side. Through the door, Sebastian and Ethan were just barely visible, sleeping peacefully next to each other, lit by the light of the moon.

 

“No!”

 

It came out strangled. “No, please! Why them?” Ophelia threw herself forward as if to block the door. Leia stopped her with an imperious wave of her hand.

 

“Ophelia, sweet,” she said, her voice low with false kindness. “Don't wake them, now.  How can you live like this? Aren't mortals so very dull?”

 

She prowled around Ophelia, the silk of her black gown trailing after her like tendrils of ink. “What will you do if they die? Mortals are so fragile. _Love_ is fragile. I can improve them. I only want to help. Wouldn't it be better if they were changed, as you are?”

 

“No, please,” Ophelia moaned, her vocabulary reduced to just those words. Leia’s eyes narrowed.

 

“Beg, Ophelia,” she commanded, and Ophelia dropped to her knees. “Beg for your love, as I could not.”

 

Ophelia wet her lips with her tongue. “Please,” she said automatically, barely a whisper. “Please don't hurt them.”

 

“I wouldn't hurt them, you fool,” hissed Leia. “Didn't you hear me? I’ll make them _better.”_

 

“No, no,” Ophelia half-sobbed. “Please, no, please just leave them alone. Take me instead.” _I've been kept before. I can bear it._ “Please, Leia, lady, mistress, your majesty, please, I swear it, I'll do anything, please-”

 

Leia ran one icy porcelain fingertip down the curve of Ophelia’s cheek. It came away damp with saltwater. Ophelia hadn't realized until then that she was crying.

 

“Very well.” Leia’s tone was still amused. She fastened her hand around Ophelia's throat and drew her up, gasping. “Do well in my service and I will leave them be.”

 

“Anything, anything-”

 

Ophelia’s comfortable home vanished around them, melting into the shadows until only Ophelia and Leia remained.

  


When the world reshaped itself, they were in a palace of black marble, somehow both austere and grandiose.

 

_Arcadia._

 

Ophelia  took stock of her surroundings. Cold and polished, barely any furnishings. A fire roared in a huge hearth, somehow not heating the room in the slightest. A poker- no, a red-hot brand- jutted from the fireplace. The bed was huge and canopied, surrounded by half-melted candles Everything was black except for the leaping flames.

  


Leia turned away, as if disinterested, and Ophelia edged away fearfully. An arched window, curtained in thick black brocade, opened out onto a sweeping expanse of grounds. A section seemed set aside like a winding garden, though only thorns grew in it. At the very center of the meandering paths, there was something carved of white marble... a tomb?

 

Ophelia leaned out to try and see more, before the clicking of porcelain joints behind her made her turn.

 

Leia stood there with a frown on her lovely face. “None of that, now,” she chided. She took Ophelia’s hand, shockingly gently, and pulled her away from the window.

 

“You are the first, Ophelia,” she whispered almost lovingly, settling her hand against the flutter of Ophelia’s pulse. “You have a beautiful voice, as I recall. Sing for me. Sing of love.”

 

Ophelia’s mouth was so dry she barely managed it.  

 

 _“_ _I promise you nothing, I take only that which is free_

_I'd give you a life full of risk, and the whirlwind of joy that can be_

_Don't try to bind me, just love me without any greed_

_And I'll give you the world, and my heart, and the air that I breathe_ _”_ she mouthed, trembling.

 

 _“_ _Slip the jesses, my love_

_This hunter you own from the hood to the glove_

_When the circling and striking are done, and I land,_

_Let me come back to your hand, let me come back to your hand_ _-”_

 

There was a tearing sensation deep inside her. Something golden was twined around Leia’s fingertips, and her voice seemed to be going on without her-

 

The shimmer of her voice turned to a golden pearl in Leia’s hands and the sound stopped. Ophelia tried to speak and nothing came out.

 

“There,” Leia said, satisfied. “You always did talk too much. Now you won't speak unless I wish it. Improving already.” Her hand dropped to the locket nestled in the hollow of Ophelia’s throat.  

 

One quick yank, matched by a sharp stab of pain through her heart. The chain snapped and hung limply in Leia’s hands.

 

“You'll get this back if you're good,” she said in response to Ophelia’s pleading eyes. “Remember that, dear.” Leia popped open the locket and dropped the pearl inside.

 

She left Ophelia standing in the middle of the room, returned with the burning brand in her hand. Ophelia’s mouth opened but, of course, nothing came out.

 

“One more thing.” Leia grabbed the front of Ophelia’s white negligee and pulled it down. It slipped off Ophelia’s shoulders, baring her to the waist.  The silk turned black where Leia had touched it, like a spreading stain. “Something to remind you who you serve.”

 

Ophelia couldn't even scream.

  
  
  
  
  
  


“Sorry, Seb,” Natalie said into her phone, not without a note of regret.  “I still haven’t found anything. I promise you, you’ll be the first one I call.”  

 

She sighed as the call ended.  Even with as quiet as the Freehold had been recently (no Loyalists, silence as usual from the Directional Courts, no murders and ...less political fighting), she hadn’t been able to make any headway on the search for Leia and Aldrich. And then Ophelia had to complicate things by going missing herself.

 

Sebastian and Ethan had called her that morning, unsettled by waking to find their siren girl gone without a trace. The bed had been rumpled, a pillow tossed to the floor, but nothing else out of place.  None of her clothes appeared to be missing and her shoes were still by the door; her cell phone was still plugged into the charger and her purse was untouched.

 

The boys were... frightened, to say the least. It seemed unnatural, and Natalie was sure it _was._ She just didn’t know how, yet.  

 

There was a banging on the door to her office.

 

“Natalie! Natalie, come quick, someone just stumbled in from the Hedge!”

 

“The Hedge?”

She got up in haste, hurrying out and down to the basement, past Michael stolidly guarding the way.  “Michael, don’t let anyone down here,” she ordered as she descended.

 

The crowd parted for her, revealing a young woman, curled in the middle of the floor.  She was covered in blood from the thorns of the Hedge, and her hands in particular were torn and raw. She was sobbing.  

 

Natalie dropped to her knees next to her.  “You’re safe now,” she reassured the hysterical young woman, examining her as she did so to determine how badly the girl was injured. “Can you tell me your name?”

 

“K-Kalani,” the girl whimpered.  “Is she looking for me? The False Queen of Grace? She threw me out, she said I wasn’t worth her time, but what if she was _lying_ -”

 

She trembled, rolling over, and it was then that Natalie saw- not a new wound, but a barely healed one.  A burn mark- no, a brand- over the girl’s heart. Shaped like a rose, encircled with thorns.

  


After some medical attention and a cup of tea in Natalie’s office, the girl spilled out her story- she had been a worker in a seamstress shop in downtown Denver and had been walking home one day when the world around her had melted into black.  A beautiful doll-like woman, dressed in black, had told her that her work was subpar and could be improved- and _would be._

 

“She, she had all kinds of people there,” Kalani babbled.  “Making them better, she said. We all have her mark. I thought I was getting better but she, she said my work wasn’t good enough, she was tired of wearing black- I made her so many things, gowns of the color of the sky and rose petals and flames but they never _stayed_ that way, was she just trying to make me suffer?” She wept softly, staring at her hands.  

 

Natalie didn’t have an answer for her, but the description of the Keeper sounded.... familiar. Red hair, porcelain skin... could it be...

 

“Kalani, I know you’re upset, but this is important,” she said firmly.  “Did you ever know your Keeper’s name? Besides her title.”

 

Kalani shook her head.  “No.” Natalie sighed.

 

“I did know the name of the mute woman she always had with her, though,” Kalani offered.

 

“Mute woman?”  

 

“She was very pretty, and sad, and the Queen sent her out to gather other people,” Kalani explained.  “Pretty boys to tend the garden. Pretty boys to _be_ the garden. Most people hated her.”

 

“And you didn’t?” Natalie prompted.

 

“She didn’t seem any happier to be there,” Kalani explained.  “Her name was Ophelia.”

 

_Oh, no._

 

More changelings began spilling into the Freehold, confused and distraught and all of them very new.  It seemed Leia- for it must be Leia, the description held true- was _letting them go_ when she was done with them.  When she had exhausted their usefulness to her and they had honed their skill, for each one had their own skill.  And each had been told the same thing.

 

“You are not good enough, but you can be better.”

  


One of them was barely alive when they arrived- it seemed the False Queen of Grace had caught them sneaking into the marble mausoleum on the property.  They had been beaten for what felt like an eternity and then discarded.

 

“I only survived because of Ophelia,” they explained, once they were conscious.  “She gave me some kind of medicine- I think she felt _guilty._ She was the one who pulled me off the street, after all. _”_

  
  
  
  
  


“Don’t think I don’t see what you’re doing,”  Leia said, one day in the garden.

 

Ophelia shrugged in response. Getting very good at body language.   _What am I doing, my lady?_

 

“Wasting resources on the trash,” Leia snapped.  “I discard them for a reason, Ophelia.”

 

Ophelia nodded. _Anything you say, my lady._

 

“You don’t seem very sincere, Ophelia.  Ophelia, _look at me.”_

 

Ophelia took just a second too long to respond.  Leia lashed her hand out and grabbed Ophelia’s dress, yanking her down to her knees.

 

“Your work is getting sloppy.” Leia wrinkled her nose.  “I don’t think you’re trying very hard.”   


Ophelia shook her head frantically.  Leia reached into some hidden pocket on her dress and tossed Ophelia’s locket to her.  “You have another chance. Bring me someone _useful._ Put that lovely voice to use.”

 

Ophelia fastened the locket around her neck.  “I will, I promise,” she gasped, sounding breathless and like she couldn’t remember quite how to speak.  “I’m sorry, Leia.”

 

She searched for hours for the perfect person, combing through the city.   _Someone smart.  Someone pretty. Someone to make Leia happy.  Someone perfect. Someone talented. Maybe a dancer? She likes dancing._

 

In the days to come, Ophelia would ask herself if she had taken too long.  

 

If she hadn’t been so slow.

 

Leia’s castle was always just on the cusp of twilight, but when Ophelia returned, dragging an enthralled mortal man behind her, it was full night.  There was no one in the castle she could find.

 

“Leia? My lady?”  

 

She found the False Queen in the garden.

 

She was not alone.  

 

Her harem of Flowering Fairest were all gone, where to Ophelia couldn’t say.  But in the center of the garden Leia stood with Ethan and Sebastian, bound in thorny vines.

 

“No- no!” Ophelia ran forward but her feet stopped, something thick and dark like shadows manifest snaking up her ankles and binding her to the ground.  “No, no, you promised, you _promised-_ ”

 

A shadow tendril reached up and pulled the locket from her throat, and her protests stopped even as she fought to free herself.  It wasn’t until then that Leia turned around.

 

“Your work has grown tiresome,” she said, dispassionately watching Ophelia twist and writhe. “So I free you from your obligations, and as a token for your loyalty all this time, I’ll give you your boys back... eventually. Once I’ve made some minor adjustments.”

 

She ruffled her hand through Ethan’s hair.  “He’s already basically Fairest, wouldn’t you agree, Ophelia? Not so much work to do there. And Sebastian- you told me he was good with plants.  Or perhaps... we make him a better surgeon. Wouldn’t he be able to save so many more lives if he _became_ his tools?”

 

_No, no! No! No! No!_

 

Ophelia sobbed silently, desperate to cry out their names, to stop this-

 

Leia waved her hand.  “Take her away. Throw her out.  I’m done with her.”

 

One of the Fairest men appeared to drag her away.  There was no pity in his lovely eyes, and she knew he was one she’d chosen personally.  No mercy for the pet of the False Queen, now that she too was to be discarded.

 

_How can I save them? How can I even face them again, after this-_

 

The garden swallowed Leia and the men from sight, but it didn’t stop Ophelia from hearing a cry of pain ring out into the Arcadian night. 


End file.
